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Internet Archaeology Displays PreColumbian Rock Art in New Light with Interactive Technology

Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM) is a fairly new technique employed by archaeologists and it has furthered research at a well-known Brazilian rock art site, Avencal 1, revealing details not previously detected. An article outlining the work has just been published in Internet Archaeology and it contains an interactive viewer which enables readers to explore the rock art panels for themselves, including altering lighting conditions.

The WebRTIViewer showing Panel 1a from Urubici embeded in the Internet Archaeology article. © P. Riris, R Corteletti, Internet Archaeology.
The WebRTIViewer showing Panel 1a from Urubici embeded in the Internet Archaeology article. © P. Riris, R Corteletti, Internet Archaeology.

The viewer was developed by colleagues at the Visual Computing Lab at Pisa who are also developing the 3DHOP application for use by the ADS. This is the first time the viewer has been used in a peer-reviewed journal, and demonstrates once again the capabilities of publishing in Internet Archaeology over many other journals.

Phil Riris (Southampton, UK) and Rafael Corteletti (Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil) applied the technique to a series of ‘blank’ panels and revealed undocumented geometric designs as well as being able to identify differences in how the engravings were produced as well as potential sequencing.

 Riris, P. and Corteletti, R. (2015). A New Record of Pre-Columbian Engravings in Urubici (SC), Brazil using Polynomial Texture Mapping, Internet Archaeology 38.